by Kevin Ryan
“Kirk to Giotto,” he said.
“Giotto here, sir,” came the reply.
“Mr. Giotto, we’re having a problem with power up here. Do you have something you can use for charges in the mine?”
There was silence at the other end. Then: “There are some canisters of kirilium that we could set near the surface. I’ll need about five minutes to set them up and get my people clear.”
“Let me know when you’re ready. Kirk out,” the captain said, closing his communicator. He turned to the admiral and said, “There is one more thing that we can do.”
“You are referring to Mr. Spock’s intermix formula that will allow a cold start of a warp reactor.”
“Yes,” Kirk said. “We might be able to get the warp core back online soon enough to do some good.”
“If I remember the report from the last time you tried that,” Justman said, frowning, “there were some pretty nasty temporal side effects.”
[94] Kirk was impressed. Sometimes he wondered if anyone back at headquarters actually read his reports. It was clear that Admiral Justman had.
“There were, but I think with the refinements Mr. Spock has done in the formula and process we can do it without the side effects.” Kirk turned to Spock.
“Theoretically,” the Vulcan said. “I would have to recalculate, factoring in the specifications of the station’s warp core, which I have already begun.”
“Could we can use the temporal side effects to buy ourselves some more of what we need most, time?” Justman said.
Spock shook his head. “That would likely be more dangerous than any other course. And much of the temporal phenomenon that the Enterprise experienced was due to the ship’s close proximity to the large gravity well of a star.”
“Let’s do it, then, but first let’s take care of the mine,” Justman said.
As if at the admiral’s command, Kirk’s communicator beeped.
“Kirk here,” he said.
“Giotto here,” said the security chief’s voice. “We are heading away from the mine in a transport now.”
There was silence for a few seconds, and then Giotto said, “We are out of range, sir.”
Justman spoke immediately and said, “Lieutenant Crane, have your people target the mine.”
“Yes, sir,” Crane said, and then she repeated the order into the intercom.
Kirk shook his head. This was no way to run a [95] defensive operation. They needed the resources of the control center.
“Ready, sir,” Crane reported a moment later.
“Fire cannons,” Justman said.
They were cut off in the unfinished command center; there was no viewer and no immediate tactical report. Kirk and the others simply waited until Crane said, “A hit, sir.”
“Mr. Spock?” Kirk asked.
The Vulcan looked up from his science station viewer.
“The mine is sealed,” he said.
“How secure is it?” the admiral asked.
“Completely,” Spock said. “I estimate it will take the Federation engineers three months and six days to reopen it.”
“The Klingons will not be pleased,” Kirk said.
“No, if they try holding this place long enough to reopen the mine, we will have a full-scale war,” Justman said. “And without those crystals, I don’t think they are ready either. I think we just bought ourselves some time.”
“I don’t know about us,” Kirk said, “but at least we got more time for the Federation to prepare.”
Justman nodded. “We are still facing a Klingon cruiser with reserve power and a damaged starship. But we have succeeded in one of our two most important mission objectives. Now we just have to make sure that the Klingons do not get the crystals on this station.”
Kirk nodded. He had also heard what the admiral was not saying but was clearly thinking. Succeeding in both mission objectives did not require that any of them survive the coming encounter with the Klingons.
Chapter Nine
“SENSORS ARE MALFUNCTIONING,” the Vulcan said, as calmly as if he were reporting the weather.
Lieutenant West had never met a Vulcan before, but from what he saw, much of what he had heard was true. Mr. Spock appeared extremely intelligent and completely without feeling. In fact, he radiated a coldness that made West uncomfortable.
“Sir,” Lieutenant Crane said. “Turbolifts are out.”
“It’s time to get moving, Captain,” the admiral said, heading for the door.
“Wait, sir,” Lieutenant Basso said. “Here,” she said, as she handed one phaser-2 side arm to the admiral and another to West.
For a moment, West considered not taking it. He was a xenoanthropologist, a scientist, not a soldier. At the [97] Academy, he had taken the required phaser and weapons training and then sworn off using them.
He had intentionally chosen a field of study that would make sure he kept that vow.
That was weeks ago. A lifetime ago.
He knew things now he could not forget. He knew about Klingons and he knew that there would be no non-combatants in this fight. There would only be victors and vanquished.
He knew the Klingons did not take prisoners.
Then he realized that he had made the decision to act when he woke up in the starbase hospital bed. He had made the decision when he told the admiral that he wanted to use his scientific talents and education to help defeat the Federation’s enemies.
West took the phaser and watched the admiral do the same.
“The Klingons will want to board the station and take us in close combat. For what it’s worth, they think their victory is inevitable,” West said. “The result of this overconfidence is that they don’t react well to setbacks and surprises.”
“Then we will have to surprise them,” Kirk said.
The group was quickly in the corridor and on the move. West watched Admiral Justman take the lead with Kirk beside him.
More than once, West had wondered what the admiral was like as a young commander. He had read the reports and heard some of the tales from the admiral’s own lips.
But until he had seen Captain Kirk in action, he had not really understood. Watching the two men, West felt [98] an irrational sense of optimism and gripped the phaser tightly in his hand.
Lieutenant Uhura studied the viewscreen, willing the Klingon ship to show itself, but the screen showed nothing but the starfield. Tracking a ship traveling at high warp from a close distance was a tricky proposition at best.
With the Enterprise and the station’s sensors working together they had had a reasonable fix on the Klingon ship. But with the station’s sensors out, they were chasing sensor ghosts—very nearby sensor ghosts.
“Phaser status?” she called out.
There was no immediate reply from the acting science officer. After a few seconds, she turned around and said, “Report.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” the officer said. “A moment ago, I was showing sixty-seven percent and rising. Now ...”
Then Uhura felt a definite tremor in the deck.
“Get security down to engineering,” she called out an instant before the emergency lights started lighting up on control panels throughout the bridge. Uhura jumped to her feet.
“Seal off the engineering deck and get me the captain!” A moment later acting Communications Officer Perez said, “I have the captain.”
“Captain,” Uhura said. “We have a problem. The ship’s warp engines have been turned off.”
“Do you have the saboteur?” Kirk asked.
Turning her head, Uhura watched Perez at work. Then the lieutenant said, “Security reports that they [99] have a technician from the starbase cornered ... he’s fled into one of the warp nacelle accessways.”
“Does he have any weapons or explosives?” Uhura asked immediately.
“I want him taken alive,” Kirk’s voice said.
“No weapons,” Perez said, “And security teams are exercising extreme caution.�
�
There was a few seconds of silence, and then Perez said, “The saboteur has thrown himself into the plasma stream.”
She turned to Uhura and said, “He’s gone, sir.”
“The Klingons have come out of warp,” the acting science officer said. “They’re here, sir.”
“We don’t have much power for phasers, but we have torpedoes, Captain,” Uhura said.
“Is the Klingon ship making any hostile movements toward the Enterprise?” Kirk asked.
“No, they are ignoring us and taking position near the station,” the acting science officer said. “They have engaged tractor beam and are powering up their transporters.”
“What is your position?” Kirk asked.
“We are just outside the drydock, sir,” she replied.
“Good,” Kirk said. “Make no hostile moves toward the Klingon cruisers. Let them think the Enterprise is incapacitated. I’m told they think their victory is inevitable. Let’s keep the Enterprise in reserve to give them a surprise later. I will reroute Mr. Scott to you to get the warp engines back online. Kirk out.”
Uhura gave the appropriate orders and sat heavily in her command chair. The captain’s voice maintained its [100] usual confident tone. But Uhura knew that the captain would soon be fighting an overwhelming number of Klingons in close quarters.
Yet the captain would still have a better chance than Enterprise would have against the Klingon ship while they had little power and virtually no shields.
There was nothing she or the Enterprise could do but wait.
Well, not quite nothing.
Uhura turned to the science station and said, “Have engineering vent some coolant from the mooring holes. Let them think we’re hurting.”
It wasn’t much, but the Klingon ship’s sensors would read their warp drive as inactive and would see coolant streaming from their open moorings.
Though using the explosive bolts to escape the moorings had caused some damage, Uhura knew it was primarily cosmetic. Yet to the Klingons, it would look like they had severely damaged themselves trying to blast out of drydock.
Let them think it, Uhura thought. Let them think we are dead in space.
“Photon torpedo status?” she asked.
“Armed, ready, and targeted at the Klingon vessel,” the tactical officer on duty said.
Yes, the Klingons would likely underestimate the Enterprise in its current condition. She very much looked forward to correcting their view.
Kirk conducted his conversation with Uhura on the run, and then stopped to make his report to the admiral, [101] whose face betrayed no emotion. He immediately turned to Lieutenant Crane and said, “The Klingons will be boarding immediately. Deploy your people to concentrate on defending the control center.”
As Crane opened her own communicator, Justman turned to Kirk.
“We have to get to the control center and quickly,” he said. “We’ll rendezvous with the others on the way. If your chief engineer can get back to the Enterprise, how long will it take him to get the engines back online?”
Kirk turned to Spock, who said, “With the new calculations already in the ship’s computer banks, less than ten minutes.”
“Do it,” Justman said, and then Kirk was on his communicator issuing the new order to Scotty.
Justman then turned his attention to the small group behind him. “Things have been changing quickly on this mission and when the Klingons show up they are likely to get even worse. I’m afraid that I cannot simply ask for your best, I have to ask you for more. We have to win this. The Klingons cannot have the crystals under any circumstances. And if we win the day today and send them packing back to the Empire, we will either stop this war completely or delay it until the Federation is ready.”
Then the admiral was running down the station corridor with Kirk and the others at his heels.
Kell, Fuller, and the squad raced to the transporter room and took to the pads. A moment later, Kell and the others materialized in the station’s transporter room.
He immediately saw that the station was not at full [102] power. Emergency lights illuminated the room and the corridor beyond it. The relatively dim light made the station look more deserted.
They headed out into the corridor, and then Fuller made the announcement that a saboteur had turned off the Enterprise’s warp drive, rendering it nearly powerless for what would likely be the duration of the fight.
Kell wondered if the saboteur had been Port or his nameless accomplice on the station. It hardly mattered: the Klingon was dead now, and the one who remained would be one more Klingon warrior among the many who would soon be on board the station.
A vibration rocked the deck, then another.
“The station is under attack,” Fuller said. “Let’s get moving to the rendezvous site.”
They took to the corridor at a full run. The turbolifts would have been quicker, but most of them were out thanks to more sabotage from the two Klingon Infiltrators on board. In any case, Kell knew they were vulnerable to failure during an attack, possibly trapping the security force inside.
Since the transporter room was on the station’s outer circle, they had to race down one of the large spokes and head toward the rendezvous site in the middle ring of the station. Beyond that, he knew, was the control room, which was in the central hub.
Near the end of the large corridor that ran down the length of the station’s spoke Kell saw a large window near the top of the corridor revealing a small section of the central hub. The scale of the structure was enormous, approximately one hundred decks thick.
[103] Now Kell could see Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and a small security force waiting by the entrance to the middle ring. When they came closer, Kell saw there were two other officers he did not recognize in the group, an older human wearing an admiral’s uniform and a young lieutenant.
Chief Fuller conferred with Captain Kirk and the admiral for a moment.
Then Fuller turned to the squad. “Mr. Anderson, Mr. Grad, Mr. Jawer, Mr. Parrish, and Mr. Clancy, you will come with me. We are going to escort Lieutenant Commander Spock to the station’s warp reactor, which is in the lower decks of the central hub. He’s going to get the power back on.”
Then the chief pointed to a station security guard standing next to him. As the human turned around, Fuller said, “Ensign Port here will show us the way.”
Port turned and gave Kell a quick but unpleasant smile. So the Klingon Infiltrator lived.
“The rest of you are with me,” Captain Kirk said. “We need to make our way to the control room. We have to protect it and its contents at all costs.”
Before the captain turned to go, he looked at Chief Fuller and said, “Good luck, Sam.”
“You too, sir,” Fuller said.
Then the captain took a moment to consider Fuller’s squad. “Good luck to all of you,” he said.
Kirk drew his phaser and headed down the corridor at a dead run with the others at his heels.
“Move out,” Sam Fuller ordered, with Ensign Port beside him. Kell saw a flash of light from above and [104] realized that the Klingon ship had just knocked out the station’s shields.
Instead of heading straight to the central hub, the captain and the others raced along the station’s middle ring, which circled the hub. Kell did not have to ask why.
If both teams traveled along the same “spoke” and faced an overwhelming Klingon force, both missions would be ended immediately. Splitting up and taking different routes to the hub would increase their chances.
A red-alert klaxon sounded and a voice came from the intercoms warning of an intruder alert.
Fuller drew his own phaser and Kell followed suit as the rest of the squad did as well. Then Kell realized that the Infiltrator Port was holding his own phaser as well, and standing right next to Sam Fuller.
Kell tightened his grip on his own phaser, ready to fire if Port made any threatening motions toward the chief.
He felt a cer
tainty rise within him. He would die before he allowed any harm to come to Fuller, or the others in his squad.
After all of his doubts, he welcomed the clarity that descended over him as he felt the heat of battle. He might have lost his honor, but the call of his ancestors and the call of his blood was strong.
He followed the call as he followed Sam Fuller deeper into the station.
Chapter Ten
LIEUTENANT KYLE could tell by the expression on Mr. Scott’s face that something was wrong—something other than the half-dozen serious setbacks they had suffered in the last hour.
“The Enterprise’s warp engines have been shut down, laddie. She’s a sitting duck out there. The captain wants us to return to the ship to perform a cold restart. Mr. Spock will have to restart the station core by himself.”
A moment later, Chief Brantley came running around the corner with a station security guard beside him. “Mr. Scott,” Brantley said. “This is Ensign ...”
“Briggs,” the young man said.
“I received the new orders from the captain. We’re going to escort you to the nearest transporter and get you back to the Enterprise.”
Mr. Scott nodded and said, “Aye, but we may not [106] need much escorting.” He pointed to the cargo transporter right next to the row of maintenance airlocks, one of which they had used to dock the travel pod.
Scott rushed over to the transporter, which Kyle recognized as an older model; in fact, it was older than any other unit he had seen in service.
Mr. Scott manipulated the controls for a minute, then muttered something inaudible under his breath. That particular stream of words was the only Gaelic that Kyle had ever heard the chief engineer use. And Kyle did not need a translator to understand their meaning.
“The unit’s been tampered with, the circuits are fried,” Scott said.
“Sabotage?” Chief Brantley asked.
The chief engineer nodded.
“Why sabotage the transporters?” Kyle asked with surprise.
“They are an effective weapon in a tactical situation like this one. The Klingons have to lower their shields to transport their warriors over here. With working transporters, we could beam over personnel or explosives.”
